


Ambiguity in the Relationship of Rivals

by Chronolith



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-29
Updated: 2010-03-29
Packaged: 2017-10-08 09:59:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/75508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chronolith/pseuds/Chronolith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Girls were different, smarter, when came to rivals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ambiguity in the Relationship of Rivals

The song stuck in Ino's head made her cranky and itchy in ways that were uncomfortable to think about. As a general rule she liked love songs. They were like mental cotton candy that made her sigh and giggle and feel normal. Nice little ballads about a girl and a boy and how they loved each other, or one loved the other, or whatever. Something simple, something heterosexual. Something that had nothing to do with the fact that without Sasuke to vocally obsess over she started to thinking about other members of team seven. Members that happened to be not blonde, and more importantly, not male.

Not that liking girls was bad. Ino liked to think of herself as an open-minded kind of girl. She would never think less of Fifth because of her relationship with Shizune.

But she, Ino Yamanaka, was quite straight, thankyouverymuch. She liked boys. She liked the way they talked. She liked the way they postured for each other, watching each other out of the corners of their eyes to make sure they were being noticed. She liked the way they walked, all arrogant and insecure. She liked boys.

Ino would admit that she also liked the way girls would look up at her from under their lashes. Liked the way they smelled of flowers, poison, and metal polish. Liked the way the muscles moved in their slender arms and legs. So, she guessed that she liked girls as well, which was a little confusing, because she was fairly sure you were supposed to like one or the other.

Ino didn't lie to herself about the way she watched Temari's aggressive, graceful walk. Or about the way her breath would catch watching Hinata's face would go from sweet and shy to all business in seconds. And Ino knew that she always watched Sakura, no matter what the Fifth's apprentice was doing. Sakura wasn't even a commanding presence, not the way Sasuke was. Nor was she a loud one, like Naruto. But Ino always watched Sakura. Ino probably knew more about the changes in the Fifth's new apprentice than the Fifth did.

The Fifth didn't compulsively watch Sakura like Ino did.

Ino knew all about this tendency of hers, but she didn't have to like it. Liking girls was way more complicated than liking boys. Especially when the girl you really liked, had always liked, only liked boys.

She'd cried herself sick the day Sakura had announced that they were rivals. Her father slipped into her room as quiet as a shadow and stroked her hair until she brokenly told him what Sakura had said. He had gotten a funny look. What he had said hadn't made sense for a long time after.

"Ninjas, good ones, need rivals. Your best rival is closer, more intimate than your best friend or your lover." Then he had smiled that smile that made her defensive and angry. It was the father smile that said she would understand when she got older.

And she did understand when she got older. She saw what he was talking about with Naruto and Sasuke; how they would never be half of what they were without the other. It made her wonder, a little, about exactly what was going on with those two, but she never looked at that too closely. Mostly because she didn't want to think about Sasuke being gay. (Though she sort of suspected he was at least a little because no one could be that pretty and not be somehow unavailable.) But even more because if Naruto and Sasuke were so much ... more ... _something_ because they were rivals and her and Sakura still weren't _anything_, and would never be…. Well. Ino didn't want to know. She'd rather go on thinking that being rivals meant wanting each other dead, or at least firmly squashed, than meaning that your rival was closer than your wife.

So having songs running through her head about a girl liking another girl who would never like her made Ino cranky. Because it was way too close to the truth. And Ino didn't like being denied anything she really wanted.

Ino stopped in the middle of the road suddenly enough to make a small cloud of dust rise and then settle around her sandals. She glowered at the back of an unsuspecting pink head. Sakura always had the ability to be around when Ino was thinking the most uncomfortable things about her. Of course, a small voice admitted to herself, she pretty much was always thinking uncomfortable things about Sakura, so it really wasn't the other girl's fault.

Whatever.

She glowered harder at Sakura's head.

When Sakura's head didn't whip around to glare straight back at her Ino started to worry. Ino flopped down with studied carelessness and then tried to peer into Sakura's face. But a cloud of pink hair obscured it from view.

"Oi, forehead girl, why are you sitting here moping?"

Sakura didn't even move to give her the Evil Glare of Doom (tm). Once, not too long ago, Ino wouldn't have worried about Sakura sitting all by herself surrounded by a veritable cloud of angst. The reason was always blindingly apparent: Sasuke. Normally she could get the other girl out of her funk by being arrogant about the fact that of course Sasuke wanted Ino--who didn't?--he just didn't know it yet. But Sakura didn't mope about him anymore. In fact, Sakura just didn't mope at all anymore. She brooded, but any self-respecting ninja did that.

"Sakura?" Ino tried to think of the things that would upset her this badly, because generally they were the same things that would upset Sakura. "Is it missing Sasuke and Naruto?"

Because if Shikamaru and Chouji suddenly up and left her she'd be hurt and sad. And then she would kill them. Slowly.

Sakura finally looked at her. Ino was expecting a tear streaked face and for Sakura to be all blotchy like she normally was when she was upset. But the other girl's face was just so scarily pale, and the look in her eyes was just ... desolate.

"He died, Ino," for a scary second Ino thought she meant Naruto or Sasuke, but Sakura kept going like she wasn't really even talking to Ino, but more to herself. "I felt his chakra just slip away. The harder I tried to hold on, the faster it bled away. Like holding onto a fist full of sand."

It was then that Ino noticed the little bits of blood still stuck under Sakura's nails and to the tops of her boots. Blood never really comes off on the first washing. "At the hospital?" She asked, and then felt stupid. Of course it would be at the hospital, that's where Sakura practically lived these days.

"He was part of a team; the only one who survived, only he didn't." Sakura cocked her head to the side and looked at her hands. Then looked at Ino with those wide, shell-shocked eyes. "I'm really good, you know? At healing? I'm a really good medical nin. I should have been able to fix that. Yeah, we had to crack his ribs to restart his heart, and pull the kunai--"

Ino held up a hand, already looking green, "No details, remember? The deal was you become a medical nin, but tell me no details." Missions where there was blood and panic was one thing, hospitals were something _entirely_ different.

Sakura gave her a little smile, but then went back to looking devastated. "He just .. died."

Ino thought she had seen Sakura at her absolute worst when Naruto had come back half dead and Sasuke just hadn't come back at all. But the death of some nin neither of them knew, something that happened all the time when your life was killing other people, left her looking more desolate and fragile. Ino pulled Sakura into a tight hug. "Oh, Sakura-chan. It's not your fault."

Sakura was tense in her arms for a second, but it melted away like ice in mid-summer. She buried her face against Ino's collarbone and her shoulders started to shake. Ino sat staring into the distance while she rocked Sakura gently. Running her hands through Sakura's spiky, coarse hair. It didn't make her feel smug to know that Sakura had split ends, though it would have once, instead she felt proud. Because it meant the other girl had found something better too do with her time. Sakura's shoulders shook, but she didn't make a sound. Ino wondered when Sakura had learned to cry without noise.

Eventually Sakura pulled back, just a little, and Ino reluctantly started to slid her arms away. But Sakura just resettled herself against Ino, cushioning her head against Ino's shoulder. "Thanks," she said.

"It's okay," Ino replied. And she knew, suddenly, that Sakura wouldn't ever do this in front of anyone else. Their rivalry wasn't like Naruto's and Sasuke's, because they were girls and girls were different--smarter--about things, but they were closer to each other than to anyone else. No one else would have understood what it meant that Sakura was crying about the death of some nin neither of them knew. Everyone else would have thought it was a return to the old Sakura, who couldn't handle things. But they knew it was different, a new Sakura who felt responsible for these things. And it's hard for a doctor when their patient dies.

"You know what you need?" Ino told Sakura, a faint echo of when they were eight and Ino made Sakura learn to stand up for herself.

Sakura looked up at her through her lashes, "What?" she asked, her voice dripping with suspicion.

"Training."

"I train all the time."

Ino waved that way. "Proper ninja training. Something to get your body moving. Not just that medical stuff." She held up a hand. "No details please."

Sakura got an odd, indecipherable look on her face. "You think my Shisho only teaches me medical things?"

It was Ino's turn to look suspicious. She might have just gotten herself in over her head. Not that she could ever admit that.

"Alright then," Sakura said, nodding in agreement though Ino hadn't said anything at all. "Tomorrow morning, before I go to the Fifth's, we'll ... spar."

Ino did quick mental math. "That's at 3 in the morning!" She squawked.

"Not up for it, Ino-pig? Getting lazy?" Sakura teased.

"Not in your life. 3am, tomorrow."

"Tomorrow, then."

"Fine."

"Fine."


End file.
